The adults decided whether to object or stay silent.

Her belonging, her standing, her feelings, all of it was constantly being determined by grown-ups over her head, while she sat in her gold dress with her hands folded and absorbed whatever they decided she would absorb.

Powerlessness like that does something to a child.

It teaches them that they are a leaf on other people’s wind, that things simply happen to them and their only job is to endure.

And enduring, quietly and gracefully, was exactly the terrible skill my brave little girl had been forced to master.